


Severe Weather Warning

by aceofreaders (Kickasscookieeater)



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: (non explicit), Aftermath of sexual abuse, Andrew Minyard chaser of storms, Angst, Canon, Canon Compliant, Kisses, M/M, Neil is beautiful and chaotic, Past Sexual Abuse, Post-Canon, Pre-Canon, and nobody is really storm proof Andrew, brief mental break, nicky is scared of storms, sharp boys being soft, soft boys kissing, stupid boys standing out in storms, the Riot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-23
Updated: 2019-09-23
Packaged: 2020-10-27 02:07:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20752550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kickasscookieeater/pseuds/aceofreaders
Summary: On average, the Earth in its entirety is hit by a hundred lightning bolts per second.And thunderstorms are dangerous things. Risky. Unpredictable. Charged. Andrew used to think it would be a storm that killed him, that he might get struck by lightning.But that won't happen now.Those odds are too low.But some storms you can't see coming. Some storms you can't slow down. Some storms you can't run from. Some storms you don't really want to. Some storms you chase.And someone always has to be the 1 in 700,000 don't they?





	Severe Weather Warning

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to Flash Facts About Lightning - National Geographic for the info.
> 
> Still not sure how I feel about this, but I've always had a bit of a thing for thunderstorms and Andrew always had a bit of a thing for Neil. Or a big huge feelings thing. 
> 
> This might be a little melodramatic? idk? but that's how storms make me feel.
> 
> So have some thunderstormy Andreil. And let me know if you want more weather-inspired stuff cause I have a couple ideas.
> 
> p.s. meteorological accuracy can go fuck iiittsssself.

It’s his understanding at 7 years old that thunderstorms could be dangerous. They could lead to all sorts of very bad things. Hurricanes. Fires. Death, if you weren’t careful. If you stood there and let yourself get electrocuted. 

It’s storming, or at least it’s about to be. The grey sky is quivering with anticipation above him, all those clouds swirling together into one big warning. 

Go little boy. Run and hide. A storm is coming.

He is standing out on the porch of his new home. Temporary as he knows it will be. There’s a broken down old porch swing to his right. He watches it sway, pathetic, in the harsh wind. His hair whips with it. 

He doesn’t particularly want to be here.

There isn’t really any place he does want to be. 

There’s a crackle in the air. The wind whips harder. Harder still. The clouds are rioting. He can feel it now, the danger. The hair on his arms stands up.

But the sky does not break yet. Soon it will. And soon, so will he. But he doesn’t know that yet.

Maybe he could run away somewhere. L.A. Isn’t that where dreams came true?

The energy in the air is electric. It buzzes under his socked feet, one toe peeking out, cold.

No, maybe that was Disneyland. Andrew has never been to Disneyland. Or L.A. He doesn’t really have dreams either. 

The night is chaos. Chaos in the rolling clouds, chaos in the roar of the thunder, chaos in the wind still rushing through Andrew’s hair. 

So maybe he’ll just stay here. He doesn’t want to go back to the home particularly. Nowhere else in mind. Maybe. Maybe he’ll just step out into the chaos and see what’s out there. What does he have to lose by leaving here? Not even a name.

The air is all pressure and static and the clouds are rolling rolling rolling.

What if he gets struck by lightning?

There’s a crackle in the air, a warning shot. A piece of the broken old porch swing breaks away and disappears. It scratches his bare leg on its’ way.  


In the end, he just stands there. Waiting. Watching. Feeling. Thinking about going inside. Thinking about going out.

The pressure bursts, the rain comes beating down, the first thunderous snap rocks the sky and then – 

“Andrew, come inside.”

He wasn’t struck by lightning that day. But a couple nights later, he would break like the sky and the rain would thunder down for years.

\---

A storm is coming to Palmetto. 

Andrew is dangling his legs over the edge of the rooftop of Fox Tower, higher than the building and wondering about the sky. 

It looks so angry. So spooky scary. Full of those grey clouds again and full of reckless danger and electricity. Waiting to scream. Angry angry angry. 

He’s wondering about that tempestuous sky. Wondering about flying. Wondering if this would be the storm that killed him. 

It starts to rain. Not fully, not like a real storm not like real drowning. But enough to snuff out Andrew’s lighter where it goes to light his cigarette. He tries again. Tries again. Tries again, face lit by the flame so close to his skin. Tries again. Hurls lighter and cigarette packet both over the edge and laughs when a soccer player barely flinches away from them.

Laughs laughs laughs.

He’s soaked through, clothes heavy with rain, dripping water into his eyes from the ends of his hair and down his cheeks and oh hey, hey, it’s almost like he’s crying except for how Andrew never cries because he’s too busy laughing and even if he wasn’t what is there to cry about? His feelings? His pain? Andrew has no feelings and so Andrew has no pain, see?

He kicks his legs back and forth. 

Waves to Kevin down below.

Hello Kevin.

You look so small down there.

It’s still raining and the sky is still full of anger and Andrew wonders again. Because this is no storm. No, that is yet to come. And come it will. Andrew can feel it. The pressure in the air. It’s coming it’s coming it’s coming.

“Andrew! Andrew get down!”

Sure Kevin. 

“Andrew! We have to go!”

But hey, maybe it’ll come early. Maybe it’ll come today after all. Maybe it’ll knock Andrew right out of the sky. Maybe it’ll knock Andrew right out of the world into oblivion. Maybe he’ll get struck by lightning. 

“Andrew!”

But that’ll have to wait to be seen won’t it? 

Yes it will.

A storm is coming and Andrew has a flight to Millport to catch.

\---

It’s chaos with the new kid. The runaway. The liar. He is chaos in his quiet, chaos in his lies, chaos in his secrets. 

He notices things, nearly destroys himself trying to score on Andrew, sees what he shouldn’t be able to, he hides things, big things, binder-shaped things. He refuses to be afraid, he refuses to bend, he refuses to stop. He is full of languages and hidden talents and this terrible fury that shows in his swing. 

Neil Josten is absolutely wild. A force of nature. Andrew can tell. Andrew can sense it beneath his own skin. He is short-fused, small scaled, and he is most certainly hazardous.  


It’s endlessly stupid and endlessly entertaining. 

He takes Neil to Eden’s. He looks just like the sky before it starts to scream, dark and sharp and crackling with energy. His eyes are blue but they’re scared. They’re cast low to the ground. He looks at Andrew but he doesn’t see Andrew.

He is chaos. But something is missing. Something isn’t right. And storms can be dangerous. 

Neil knocks himself out and he throws a fucking glass and he breaks out through a window and he hitch hikes to fucking Palmetto. 

Wild wild boy. Run rabbit run rabbit run. 

Beautiful. 

Liar.

Liar liar liar. 

Andrew demands the truth and he believes he gets as much of it as he is going to. And he watches watches watches.  


He stands there and watches.

He pretends that boy. He pretends so hard and he does a very bad job. Poor little rabbit so scared. Poor little rabbit, such a good liar and such a bad one. 

He pretends, oh he does, but there is a riot within him. Andrew can feel it. Rage and desperation roar beneath the surface of his skin. Thunderous.

He pretends, oh he does oh he does. He crackles, simmers. 

He pretends and then he stops. Snaps. He stops pretending and he does it on live TV, how funny! How fucking stupid! 

Little rabbit heart beating so fast runs into danger. Little rabbit, who are you really?

Chaos. Chaos. Chaos.

\---

It’s almost like a fuck you, you know?

It’s almost like. Almost like. Almost like. 

Nothing.

He goes into the back room and then he comes back out. It happened and it’s done now and someone’s still shit at taking directions but okay okay okay fine.

But here he is now.

Under the lights of Eden’s Neil looks at Andrew and Andrew looks at Neil.

And Andrew, looks at him, looks at him looks at him looks at him and Neil is talking. 

“Nicky says you’re only keeping me here because of Kevin. What happens if Kevin gets bored of me?”

The lights of Eden’s.

“Keep his interest.”

He looks into the blue of Neil’s eyes. They’re not looking directly at him. They are a riot even in the low light. They are shattered. Electric.

“Can you protect me from my past?”

The lights are reflecting off of them, bouncing, his eyes are lights of their own.

“Your fathers boss.”

Something is missing. And storms were dangerous.

“If he finds me he’ll kill me.”

He looks into Neil’s eyes. They’re staring right into Andrew’s.

Ah, there it is. 

There’s the lightning. 

“What a mess.”

\---

Seth is killed.

It’s not a storm that gets him.

Not really. Not exactly.

It’s not a storm that kills Seth depending on who you ask. Depending on who cares. Andrew certainly doesn’t.

But oh does that sky turn darker still. 

\---

There is something, something, something, so dark and twisty in that runaway boy. He is unhinged a little too, isn’t he? Except oh maybe not. Cold. Like the rain. Like hail. Like the angry wind. Andrew plays not for him but just because. Neil plays too, a desperate raging hurricane still, dangerous dangerous dangerous dangerous always. 

It’s a sound that rings in Andrew’s ears sometimes. A warning.

Go. Go. Go. 

You’re about to be struck.

But it’s not him breaking open, not this time.

No no no no, it is Neil Josten Runaway Wonder, Liar of Lies, Panic Attack on Legs. His whole body shakes with it, thunder in his blood that even Andrew can feel, eyes screaming blue fire and sparking and hair almost on end somehow but that can’t be right.

Focus Andrew.

Focus.

The rabbit is about to give himself a heart attack.

So he picks up the phone.

Answer the phone Neil.

Answer.

“You should answer it.”

And Neil does and Andrew promises him again. 

Number 1 on Neil Josten’s speed dial.

Andrew will keep Neil safe.

He will. He will. He will.

But only because he promised. Only because he promised. Promised. Only because of that. 

Where his skin comes close to Neil’s it prickles. A far away thunder shouts its warning.

\---

In the end, Andrew does get struck but by something else, something vicious and cruel like ice. It’s not what he was expecting to kill him.

Blood.

Blue eyes. Okay.

Blood. 

Who does it belong it to?

Not him. Not him either.

Blood.

Hazel.

Blue.

And then he’s leaving. Andrew is. 

He’s leaving isn’t he?

Okay.

Fine.

He’s not dead he’s just decaying.

They want him to leave. 

He wants to leave.

Doesn’t particularly want to be here.

He is going to leave.

Doesn’t particularly want to be anywhere really.

They’re making calls. So he can leave.

The pills never felt like him. Never tasted right. 

He wants to go go go.

Like bile.

Go little boy. Run and hide. 

Like blood.

Except no. No he has promises. Andrew does not break his promises because if he does then –

Andrew does not break his promises. He does not. 

Neil Josten and his eyes and his scars so many scars. 

Leave Kevin to him?

This boy made of thunder and chaos.

Scars.

His skin his eyes his scars like tethers.

Okay.

Okay.

And Andrew is gone.

\---

He thinks about them. When the wind is howling in his ears and his sobriety is crashing around him like thunderclaps, and – 

He thinks about Neil’s scars. They make no sense when all you can do is feel them. Like the sky torn apart. Like uprooted earth. Like acid rain. 

He thinks about them. And he thinks, that’s it. No drugs in his system. He’s safe like this. He thinks, he cannot possibly get struck by lightning now.  


Storm proof.

\---

He’s sober. 

Very sober.

And there is pressure in the air and beneath his ribs and under his skin whenever he looks at Neil.

And that’s a problem.

Because there he is, chaos and chaos and chaos and marks and bruises. He is static electricity crackling and snapping but. 

He is vulnerable because he is healing because he bled. 

For Andrew. 

And that’s a problem too.

None of this was supposed to be happening. 

And it’s not.

It’s not.

Andrew is not chasing this storm.

\---

His hand in Neil’s hair in the library. Static shock.

The pressure in the air. 

His hand on Neil’s bare skin, his eyes on Neil’s scars counting every one, and maybe Neil’s right maybe he’s not a sociopath (he’s not. He knows this. Has known this. How does Neil know this?) because it feels like the first crack in the sky when the storm hits.

Neil Josten cracks the Foxes open, cracks the twins open, cracks Kevin open. Cracks himself open too, tears himself apart like a hurricane and pieces himself back together. Their skies all torn asunder.

\---

“Fucking move Neil Jesus Christ oh _Jesus_ that one was loud. Oh _fuck_, that’s _lightning_, that is lightning.”

They’re waiting for Neil, digging around in the new car for his stupid bandanna. 

“Anyone would think you were scared of storms Nicky.”

Yes, Aaron he is. 

“You know what Aaron, you bitch? I _am_ scared of storms. And we are standing in a mostly empty parking lot surrounded by open space and metal and it’s thundering and there’s fucking lightning and any minute now we’re all going to die or drown.”

Well, he’s right about the thunder. And it is loud. It rocks Andrew down to his core like a battering ram. It almost hurts his teeth. It is hot and violent and the rain pelts down on them. Andrew is heavy with it. 

Kevin eyes are darting everywhere, more turbulent than the sky. Skittish not from the thunder but the birds that have been squawking around them all for weeks now. Drawn by the storm. Hungry. 

The pressure in the air builds and builds and builds.

Thunder and Nicky flinches. So does Kevin.

Nicky is indeed scared of storms and Kevin is just scared. 

The clouds roll into each other and the wind winds its way under their skin. It feels dangerous today. Charged. The rain is sharp.

“Neil _fuck_ can you just-“

Neil pulls up abruptly then, bandanna in hand eyes alight, and the look in them is all ozone and indignation. 

“No ones fucking drowning. It’s just a storm. Get your shit together and let’s go.”

His voice echoes over the crash of thunder in Andrew’s ears. The pressure in the air builds and builds and builds. The hair on Andrew’s arms stands on end.

Neil moves forward, Nicky moves backwards, but Kevin. Kevin seems to be stuck. Rooted. Shifts his arms for the hundredth time, stares at the Maserati and all it’s newness, stares at the ground and not Neil or the raging sky or Andrew, mind somewhere far away in a nest of beasts. 

“Kevin.” Neil says. 

Kevin says nothing.

The wind starts to scream. It whips Andrew’s hair and knocks Nicky back a step and forces Kevin’s head to turn. The curls of Neil’s auburn hair move with it like a lover. His eyes flash with anger as the sky breaks into lightning. 

“Kevin. It’s time for practice.” Andrew says, demands, stares. 

And after a moment, after the slam of the car door where it was forgotten ajar, Kevin returns. Neil pushes past him and knocks his shoulder into Kevin’s and the air parts around him and the sky continues to break louder and louder and louder.

Andrew watches the storm a moment longer.

“Andrew.” Nicky says.

And so Andrew goes inside. 

\---

Andrew kisses Neil.

He thought he was safe from the lightning. Told himself over and over how low a likelihood there was.

At the first taste of Neil he knows he is wrong. And at the first press of Neil’s lips against his own he is struck. 

\---

Then he waits. 

Chaos haunts them all; the memory of blood on the walls, Exy matches, victory, brotherhood and loathing, truths and lies told to themselves and each other. Andrew waits and watches the storm.

And then.

“It’s fine if you hate me.”

He presses him into the carpet and the air of the room is electric. 

\---

It’s raining on the rooftop and Andrew is kissing Neil. Andrew is so often kissing Neil these days. They share truths and secrets and tongues and Andrew feels Neil’s thunderous pulse under his hands, can feel his lips wet and needy and his smile sharper than the rain is cold.

The air is full of static and the wind is picking up. Everything around them is grey and black except for the blue of Neil’s eyes and the deep rust of his soaked hair in Andrew’s hands, and everything around them is tumultuous and exposed and chaos but nothing more so than the breaths shared between them. 

Dangerous.

Charged with electricity.

A hurricane warning in Neil’s quiet gasp.

And it’s strange.

Andrew never took himself for a storm chaser.

\---

The thing about Binghamton is that the air is so still that night. It is a literal riot all around him. But there is nothing in the air. No static electricity. No pressure.

There are no clouds at all. A perfect, still night. So full of violence. 

Bottles are flying everywhere. 

Where is he?

Elbows narrowly missing eyes.

Where is he?

Blood and punches.

Where is he?

Screaming and cursing.

Where is he?

Where is he?

“Where is Neil?”

“Andrew get on the bus-“

His bag is here. His phone is here. 

His keys. 

Neil’s keys. 

“Where is Neil?”

“He’s on the bus come on!”

He’s not on the bus.

Everything is so still and quiet on that bus. 

“_Where_ is Neil?”

It’s all he can say now apparently.

“This is his fucking bag and this is his fucking phone and these are his _fucking keys_. But he’s not here. _Where is he?_”

That too apparently.

He can’t be on the bus anymore. Can’t be anywhere else. Because Neil is nowhere. Nowhere in the stadium and nowhere outside and nowhere on the bus and nowhere in any of the nearby hospitals or emergency rooms or anywhere at all. 

Vanished. 

Andrew can’t feel anything but absence. Anything but what he thinks might be fear and is he falling why is he so afraid, and then there’s something in Kevin’s eyes in his hands fixing Neil’s racket he knows something he knows and the air in the bus is so still with tension and then – 

\---

Sometimes Andrew dreams. And sometimes he remembers when he doesn’t want to. Sometimes he needs to drown in something else. Something not his own downpour. 

So when the storm beats down upon the rooftop he goes up and drowns in the hot angry rain. Because he can feel, he does feel, a little bit at a time. Every now and then. And sometimes that brings pain. 

But Andrew Minyard does not cry.

The clouds cry for him.

And cry they do. Loudly, viciously, endlessly, and Andrew is heavy heavy heavy with it. He could tip right over the edge if he wasn’t careful. 

He tips himself backwards instead. Stares up into the sky of the storm as it tumbles and roars and cracks, as lightning streaks across the grey and black and illuminates the world shades of white blue. 

He doesn’t think about the fall. The clouds spill their tears down his cheeks. He thinks about the lightning as it shatters the clouds.

Sees it behinds his eyes when he closes them against the rain. Feels it kiss its electricity along his skin, his neck, his face, his lips. It feels like a memory of a force greater than nature. It charges the air. He can almost hear its voice in his ear. 

He lays on the rooftop and drowns in the storm. 

\---

Neil is less chaos now.

Well no. That’s not accurate. 

Neil Josten is always chaos. He is always dangerous. He is always electric. He is always a pressure in the air. 

Andrew breathes him in. 

“I just…wanted you to know. It’s not nothing to me.”

Under the covers of the bed is a static heat. Outside is rain, raucous, and thunder that shakes the dorm room windows.

It’s dark and storming out there.

“Andrew you’re important to me. This is important to me.”

It’s dark and storming in here too. In Andrew’s blood, in Neil’s eyes, so tenacious and uncertain in the same look and that electric electric blue, the crackle in the air where Neil’s cautious voice broke the calm.

He is no longer desperate raging chaos. Now he is simmering. Rolling thunder. He has time.

“I want to be…here. I want to be where you are.”

But he is still, still so dangerous. 

“Andrew do you understand?”

Does he? 

“Andrew.”

Yes he does.

The thunder outside crashes against the window and the only light in the room left flickers out. 

The rain hits the glass like hail and the wind is howling howling howling and Andrew is kissing kissing kissing Neil.

Neil whose kiss is all relief and gratitude and who’s blood is chaos and who’s entire existence is one big hazard to Andrew. 

Neil whose hand is under Andrew’s hand on Andrew’s chest, gripping Andrew’s hair, skin hot and shocking Andrew over and over and over again until the hair on his arm’s stands on end. 

Neil who is chaos. 

Neil whose kiss strikes Andrew like lightning. 

\---

“Neil. Fucking. Josten.”

“That’s not my middle name Nicky.”

“Well what is your middle fucking name so I can ground you properly?”

“None of your fucking business.”

“Neil don’t swear!”

“You’ve done nothing but swear at me for the past five _fucking_ minutes.”

“Because you won’t come inside you child!”

Neil just steps further out into the storm. Arms wide. Eyes wild. Living. Playing with danger because he cannot help himself.

“Neil!”

Andrew stands on the porch and watches.

Waiting.

The clouds are rolling and crashing into each other. All black and grey and fury. Neil stands and laughs against it all. Stares down Nicky’s fear.

Kevin pushes past Nicky to stand in the downpour and the danger too and Neil’s smile is sharper than the lightning that’s tearing new realities into the clouds. It echoes in his eyes. Mirrors of the torn sky.

“Kevin. _Kevin_. I expect better from you.” Nicky sighs, exasperated, anxious, a little envious maybe.

Two middle fingers are his only reply, one tan one mottled. A roar in the sky. 

The pressure in the air builds and builds and builds. 

Crackles.

Tastes like ozone. 

Feels like danger.

“For fucks sake Nicky it’s not that hard.” Aaron hisses, shoving off his seat on the porch step. “Are you happy now you lunatics?” he shouts against the wind. The next rumble is a warning.

Go. 

Go inside.

A storm is here.

“Jesus what is wrong with you!?” 

Maybe he will.

“It’s just a storm Nicky, it’s not even that bad.” Kevin says, his voice play-bored, but his eyes alight, his body wired by the storm as it whips around him. His head held high against the angry rain. 

“There’s nothing to be scared of Nicky for fucks sake.” Aaron’s voice is as tired and exasperated as the slump of his body, soaked to the bone but still standing. 

“How low are the odds you’ll get struck by lightning? One in 700,000.” Neil’s voice, loud and brazen and challenging. Chin titled in defiance, unshaken by the wind. 

“Someone has to be the one.” Nicky replies. But his resolve is weakening in the face of the chaos.

“Oh come on, it’s just a storm.” and Neil’s dagger smile when he says it breaks across his face as another raucous roar of thunder breaks the sky and he is born of this.  


Just a storm.

“Fine, _fine_!”

Just a storm indeed. Just a mess of electricity and pressure and wind and severe warnings and danger danger danger. 

Just a storm. Just a storm.

Just a boy.

Not just anything.

The pressure in the air bursts around Andrew as he moves. The rain is warm and electric, the wind shakes his bones, the skies are furious. 

Later, Andrew will kiss “Abram” into the skin of Neil’s hipbone. Later, Andrew will swallow the electricity in Neil’s lungs. And one day, later still, he will hold lightning in his hands where the skin of his palm will meet Neil’s, fingers strung together. One day, later even still, he will come to understand that some storms never pass. Some storms you can only chase.

But that is one day. Andrew doesn’t know that yet.

Today, Andrew goes out to meet the storm. 

It won’t kill him.

After all, he’s already been struck by lightning.


End file.
